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Thursday, October 16, 2014

The Thousand Island Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution is finally a reality. We had an excellent Charter Day luncheon with many guests from the Empire State Society SAR. The above photo is from the Thousand Island Sun. I am the registrar for the TIC and welcome any requests about this chapter.

On the day following our Charter Day, we joined with the Daughters of the American revolution to rededicate a Revolutionary war rave in Old Evens Mills cemetery.

That same day we also helped the DAR to rededicate a grave in Kelsey Bridge cemetery in Theresa. I would like to thank everyone who participated in these events, in particular, Jim Eagen, who loaned us the flags used in these ceremonies.

Friday, August 15, 2014

On August 15, 2014, Parks Honeywell and I gave a presentation to the Town Hall Meeting, held at the base chapel on Ft Drum, NY. Parks is shown explaining the Sons of the American Revolution's Operation Ancestor Search to troops from the Warriors in Transition Battalion. In this programs the SAR provides free international memberships to Ancestry.com and assists in creating family trees using Ancestry and other online resources. The presentation was well received and 38 people signed up for OAS. They were supplied with blank family tree forms so they could get an early start.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

On July 18, 2014 officers and members of the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (ESSSAR) met at the Trackside restaurant in the old Utica, NY train station to consider the creation of a new chapter to be called the Thousand Island chapter, based in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties. The meeting went very well and all are hopeful that the resolution will be approved September 6, 2014 at ESSSAR at Ft. Niagara. Seated L to R around the table in the above photo are; Mark Friden, Bruce Coyne, Parks Honeywell, George Gydesens, VP Central Region ESSSAR, Duane Booth, President ESSSAR, Tom Dunne, President Saratoga Battle Chapter ESSSAR and Joel Bixby. Mark, Parks, Joel and I are current members of the ESSSAR and will become members of the 100 Island chapter, if approved.

I became a member through my mothers ancestor, Joseph Calkins. Parks guided me through the application and with records my aunt Elizabeth Ann Calkins Barron had amassed and some I had to find, it was a simple and straightforward process.

Friday, June 6, 2014

While researching families in Westmoreland, Oneida, NY I found a series of articles in the Daily Sentinel, Rome, NY that listed veterans buried in Oneida county as of 1922. The list was created by the Sons of Veterans and was printed in 23 articles, on a space available basis, by the Daily Sentinel. The list contains about 1200 entries, each containing name, unit, birth, death and age. The wars represented range from the Revolution to World War I but most of the burials are related to the civil war.

What a job of work it must have been to create this list before computers and the internet. It appears they visited each cemetery and examined the stones and burial records. What dedication from the Sons of Veterans and the Daily Sentinel. I felt I had to post this list where it could be found online.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Added the following families to the Family Events page; Hull-Bellinger, Halleck and Dowsland. I was looking for people who had worked at Westmoreland Malleable Iron and found these. My grandfather and his brother worked there as well as Hinds & Harrison Plush in Clark Mills.

A few of the people working at Malleable Iron, such as John Hull, were Civil War veterans. I had heard that these once was a mineral springs in Westmoreland. Samuel Halleck discovered it while searching for coal. A notice of it's sale at auction appeared in the Roman Citizen in November of 1841. When I was a youth in Westmoreland, I remember finding a pipe next to the stream in the Spring Woods, just down from Bucky's Pond. This would be just north of the thruway now. It tasted of sulphur but not too badly.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Long time, no post. Very busy this winter fighting snow and ice. Now it's spring, I'm replacing the sod I ripped up with the plow truck and cutting up all the limbs taken down by the ice storm.

During the winter, I created Revolutionary War burial lists for Herkimer and Oswego counties. Now I've returned to Westmoreland history and families. The Tyler page has wandered into the Siegman, DeRango and Rauscher families. When I was a lad, I would walk to town and visit the Hull mom and pop grocery store just across the bridge next to the foundry. Now I have created a Hull page and posted it on my site. The Hull family goes back to before the Civil War in Westmoreland. John Hull served in that war and worked at the foundry, as did his sons. He is buried in Westmoreland Union cemetery.

Just after the Civil War people seem to belong to two groups, those that farmed or those who worked at the foundry. After 1900 many people started commuting to Rome, Sherrill or Utica. Once you had a car you could maybe get a better job farther away. If you decided to move, the old hometown didn't seem so far away.

Started on the Story family, which is very large with a long history in Westmoreland and many connections.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Still continues cold and windy with lots of snow. Don't want to go out except for supplies. The bad weather gives me a chance to catch up on genealogy. Updated my family tree and home page with obits and wedding announcements for Saunders, Swanson, Reese and Flint.

I use findagrave.com for a quick search of dates for burials. Then I search old newspapers for obits. Funny how some families are supposed to be all buried in the same cemetery and only some have memorials. These cemeteries were supposedly completely covered from master lists. I'll have to search the cemeteries but the older stones can be so hard to read. So much depends on lighting and since you don't know before hand which way the stone faces, you don't know if lighting will be better in the morning or evening. Trees or brush near the stone can throw shadows that make things very difficult.